The State of Parana has two important ports: Paranagua and Antonina. Together, they move about 28 million tons of cargo annually. Almost all (90%) of the port activities are controlled by private interests.

The Port of Paranagua is the biggest exporter of soy beans in Latin America, but it can handle all types of cargo. It is Brazil’s largest port for shipment of grains and its second biggest maritime terminal. It is connected to inland Parana by road and rail networks.

Covering more than 2.3 million square meters, the Port of Paranagua has storage capacity for over 1.2 million tons of bulk cargoes. Its docks are a total of 2.6 thousand meters long with alongside depth from 8 to 13 meters. It contains 24 warehouses with 70 thousand square meters for the storage of general cargo and 78 storage tanks with capacity to store 260 thousand cubic meters of liquid cargo. Its container yard covers almost 303 thousand square meters, and the Port of Paranagua can process 25 containers per hour. The port also has capacity to store 60 thousand tons of sugar and seven thousand tons of refrigerated cargoes.

The Port of Paranagua is Brazil’s most important port for the export of agricultural commodities, exporting 2 million tons of soy beans, 7 million tons of soy pellets, and 200 thousand tons of maize each year. The port area includes 21 silos with total capacity to store 760 thousand tons of soy and grain. The silos are connected to the loading docks by conveyor belts that can load three Panamax vessels at the same time.

In 2007, the Port of Paranagua handled general cargoes of over 5.8 million tons of exports and 2.7 million tons of imports. It handled over 25 million tons of dry bulk and almost 4 million tons of liquid bulk cargoes. The Port of Paranagua handled almost 300 thousand TEUs of exports and about the same number of imports of containerized cargo. Almost 2500 vessels carried this cargo through the port.